Cut Federal Spending? Where?

So, there’s a new Pew Center poll out on how we Americans are feeling about the federal budget and the economy in general. While we’re feeling a teeny-tiny bit better about the economy – see the blue line going down a teeny-tiny bit?

Pew Center Poll on the economy

– we are stumped about how to balance the federal budget. OK, no way can we balance it, but make it less imbalanced. As a rule, we don’t want spending cuts, but we don’t want to raise taxes either. Bit of a problem for state legislators, who have to balance their budgets every year.

What worries us most

What really struck me, though, was the bottom part of this table to the left, the part that says what worries us most. For all the hot air in Congress right now about cutting the deficit, and gosh that’s what the American people want, and if we don’t cut deep now, we are not doing what the American people sent us to Washington to do – well, guess what? Only 19 percent say the deficit worries them most. Only 19 percent! It’s almost dead last in our list of worries.